Cells do things (or stop doing things) because of internal homeostatic (or other) regulatory mechanisms, or because of communication with the “outside” via receptor sites located on the cell membrane. To get cells to do what we want (produce more or less of a hormone, for instance, or simply to die as in the case of cancer cells) it would be nice to have a machine that you point at a patient, program a few dials and buttons, and then affect the receptor sites in that person’s cells.Well, the production model isn’t quite ready yet, but such a device now exists on both the drawing board and in preliminary experimental work. Continue reading They Found the Ultimate Switch
Monthly Archives: January 2008
My Linux Calendar
It’s a good one…. Continue reading My Linux Calendar
Happy Birthday Alfred Russel Wallace
We are reminded, via Mousie Cat at Evolving in Kansas, that Yesterday (I’m so embarrassed I missed this) was Alfred Russel Wallace’s birthday!Wallace was born in 1823.
We should now clearly recognise the fact, that the wealth and knowledge and culture of the few do not constitute civilization, and do not of themselves advance us towards the “perfect social state.” Our vast manufacturing system, our gigantic commerce, our crowded towns and cities, support and continually renew a mass of human misery and crime absolutely greater than has ever existed before. They create and maintain in life-long labour an ever-increasing army, whose lot is the more hard to bear, by contrast with the pleasures, the comforts, and the luxury which they see everywhere around them, but which they can never hope to enjoy; and who, in this respect, are worse off than the savage in the midst of his tribe.- A.R. Wallace in The Malay Archipelago, 1869.
The conclusion from these three independent proofs, which enforce each other in the multiple ratio of their respective weights, is therefore irresistible–that animal life, especially in its higher forms, cannot exist on the planet.Mars, therefore, is not only uninhabited by intelligent beings such as Mr. Lowell postulates, but is absolutely UNINHABITABLE.- A.R. Wallace in Is Mars Habitable? 1908
Robert Fischell: TED Prize wish: Finding new cures for migraine, depression, malpractice
Accepting his 2005 TED Prize, inventor Robert Fischell makes three wishes: redesigning a portable migraine treatment, finding new cures for clinical depression, and reforming the medical malpractice system. He also shares three new inventions that could improve the lives of millions: His Angel Med Guardian System — a pacemaker-sized device wired into the heart — detects an elevation in the electric signal of the heart, the first sign of a heart attack. His transcranial magnetic stimulator treats migraines with a magnetic pulse. Finally, the Neuropace prevents epileptic seizures by transmitting electric signals in the brain.
Evolution and Politics in Florida
Florida has a purifying effect on politicians. Around the nation, there is a range of opinion among politicians about science education and other issues, but it seems that in Florida, we have a purified strain of politicians. They are pure idiots. Continue reading Evolution and Politics in Florida
Bill Stone: Journey to the center of the Earth … and beyond!
Bill Stone, the maverick cave explorer who invented robots and dive equipment that have allowed him to plumb Earth’s deepest abysses, explains his efforts to build a robot to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa. The plan is to send the machine to bore through miles of ice and swim through a liquid underworld that may harbor alien life. And if that’s not enough, he’s also planning to mine lunar ice by 2015.
Continue reading Bill Stone: Journey to the center of the Earth … and beyond!
Do you hire this kid or put him in jail?
A 14 year old kid in Lodz, Poland, modified a TV remote to control the public transit train system. Continue reading Do you hire this kid or put him in jail?
Deborah Gordon: How do ants know what to do?
Armed with a backhoe and a handful of markers, Deborah Gordon studies ant colonies in the Arizona desert. She asks: How do these chitinous creatures get down to business — and even multitask when they need to — with no language, memory or visible leadership? Her answers could lead to a better understanding of all complex systems, from the brain to the Web. Continue reading Deborah Gordon: How do ants know what to do?
Why cooperate?
Cooperation in nature is very common, and papers about how unlikely cooperation in nature would be are also common. Especially in Nature. (The Journal.) Continue reading Why cooperate?
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) song
Hat tips:EvolgenBioradBiosingularity..And, pretty much everybody else on the Internet. Can you identify the singers that are being parodies? (or at least, imitated?)
Biggest black hole evah…
There are about 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Imagine taking twenty percent of those stars and stuffing them into one, single black hole. That would be one hell of a black hole. Continue reading Biggest black hole evah…
Cute PC with Smiley Face
Or, one of those 1960s flowers similar to bathtub decals. Who cares, it runs Linux and is only $199.00 US.
It’ll have an Intel Celeron processor, a 945GC chipset, 512MB of memory and either a 60GB or 80GB hard drive. What it won’t have: an optical drive or a PCI Express slot. Despite that, it’s a pretty good-looking box, and comes in red, blue, white, and black, each with a different icon stamped on the front.
Details here.
Electoral Compass
I will not be outdone by my fellow bloggers 3-quarks, Thoughts from Kansas, Pure Pedantry and A Blog Around the Clock. They are all putting up these “electoral compass things” where you ask a bunch of questions and get in return a graph showing where you are in relation to the US presidential candidates. Continue reading Electoral Compass
Elusive Double Einstein Ring Observed for the First Time
An Einstein Ring is one of those freaky relativistic predictions that can’t possibly be true unless Einstein was right. Well, Einstein Rings have been observed in the past, and now, we have a double Einstein Ring. Doubly proving that Einstein was right! Continue reading Elusive Double Einstein Ring Observed for the First Time
New Twist in microRNA biology
MIT scientists have found a new way that DNA can carry out its work that is about as surprising as discovering that a mold used to cast a metal tool can also serve as a tool itself, with two complementary shapes each showing distinct functional roles.Professor Manolis Kellis and postdoctoral research fellow Alexander Stark report in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Genes & Development that in certain DNA sequences, both strands of a DNA segment can perform useful functions, each encoding a distinct molecule that helps control cell functions.
There is a full press report here.